Fair Trade Recycling Launching Ewaste Offset - Countdown in Ghana 2018

Ghana's Tech Sector abandons Environmental NGO "Missionary Position" on imports, launches shipments of junk back to OECD, ton for ton, to offset imports for reuse.

Emmanuel Nyaletey gave an excellent 30 minute presentation to IERC 2018 in Salzburg, Austria 2 weeks ago, where he documented the growth and use and consumption of household electronics since construction of the Okosombo (Volta) dam in the early 1960s (and 4 subsequent dams have failed to keep up with demand since then - see draft presentation on google).

Rather than treat Africa's Tech Sector as "competition for strategic metals", Fair Trade Recycling proposed to organize Africa's Tech Sector to send back one ton of decades-old e-scrap for every ton of equipment they buy for import.

We are now 2 weeks into our interviews with Tech Sector repairers in Ghana, who are enthusiastic about sending decades old waste back rather than "prove" they have the skills to use, sell, or fix the "Stuff" that they buy. We have learned perhaps the most from surviving mentors (original TV repair trainers) from the 1970s and 80s, who shed light on the market for 'home used' electronics, and how it has evolved over 50 years.

5 years of CRTs (imported 10-30 yrs ago) abandoned at Tamale TV Shop

Fair Trade Recycling [WR3A] Launches "E-Waste Offset" Initiative In Africa

[Middlebury, Vermont May 22, 2017]  Fair Trade Recycling has launched a strategic partnership in West Africa to create capacity for proper recycling of junk "e-waste" devices without impugning, racially profiling, or interfering with the imports of Africa's talented "Tech Sector".

The initiative is based on "carbon offset" models, and is derived from conclusions Fair Trade Recycling representatives arrived at during research in Ghana from 2015 to the present.

Under the new program, African Tech Sector buyers will be rewarded with lower prices for used computers and tech sector equipment they import when they "offset" or "exchange" the tonnage for a similar quantity of obsolete or irreparable electronics taken back from African cities.  The model is patterned after "carbon offset" or carbon exchange models and the recycling training program for the women's collective "Retroworks de Mexico".

For every 50 containerloads of used electronics imported by Ghana's Tech Sector, the reuse shops will take back 10 containerloads of junk TVs and computers which were imported to Ghana two or three decades ago.  And the Tech Sector will pay for proper tools, training and methods - all funded by the profitable and appropriate reuse of newer second-hand products.

The "Agenda Shift" has already resulted in calls from major manufacturers interested in promoting takeback in Africa as a solution to junk buildup.